Agentiq Wants to Give Fans a Real Stake in the Players They Root For

If there is one thing that every sports fan is searching for, it is feeling connected to the games we love. Whether that is through rooting for our favorite teams, playing fantasy, collecting cards and other memorabilia, or just simply betting on the games. Fans are always looking for different ways to find that connection point to feel like they are a part of the action on the field.

With all that said, sports fans have never been more invested in the game, emotionally, at least.

Franchise valuations keep climbing, revenues are at record highs, and the people filling the seats and buying the jerseys are a big reason why. But according to Zach Kurtz, co-founder of Agentiq, those fans have been left out of the financial side of the equation. Agentiq is giving fans access to a proven asset class in sports that has had success with private funds for 10+ years.

“It’s driven by the people who go to every game, that watch every game, that buy tickets, that buy memorabilia,” he said. “They’re the reason that the valuations are going crazy. But they’re left out of this equation.”

Agentiq, which is launching this week, is building a platform that lets fans invest in an athlete’s future earnings. This creates an unmatched connection point between fan and player, allowing fans to feel like they are part of a player’s career, from the very beginning, to hopefully finding great success at the highest level.

Beyond Sports Betting and Cards

Today, fans who want skin in the game mostly have two options: sports betting and collecting cards.

Zach sees problems with both. Betting, he said, is “very binary,” where you either win or lose. 

Cards carry their own risk. “There’s no intrinsic value,” he said. 

“A card could get destroyed, or a new version could come out that’s better.”

Neither, in his view, gives fans a real piece of the sports economy.

“I wanted to create this company because I wanted to allow the people who are watching and creating this value to actually participate in that value creation,” he said.

A Better Deal for the Players

The other half of Agentiq’s pitch is aimed at athletes. Earnings-share deals, where a player sells a percentage of future earnings in exchange for cash today, are already common in professional sports.

Zach estimates that more than 10% of major league rosters have taken one, even if most fans only hear about “the one-off edge cases, like the Fernando Tatis Jr.’s of the world.”

The appeal for players comes down to timing. “The majority of the money you earn as an athlete is backdated and backloaded to the end of your career. Players need capital to train, improve their quality of life and de-risk their future,” Zach said.

The problem, as he sees it, is that these deals are mostly done privately, out of view. “Players are negotiating in the dark,” he said.

“Fans don’t really know about them. And our goal is to bring everything to light, make it transparent.” As Agentiq builds a database of deals, players will be able to see how others were valued and better understand their own worth.

There’s also a human side to who’s on the other end of the deal. “If you’re paying back your fans who have been on a 10-year journey with you,” Zach said, “that’s a much different no.”

How it Works

Agentiq’s valuations come from a data science team, one of whom spent seven years in the Seattle Mariners’ front office and another who previously worked at a private earnings-share fund. Their models run simulations to project what a player might earn over a career, then discount that figure to its value today.

“In theory, every player has a valuation,” Zach said. “It might be dirt cheap, but every player does have a number.”

From there, Agentiq makes the player an offer priced per percentage point of future earnings, and the player decides how much to sell, up to a cap of 10%. “We don’t do more than 10 percent of on-field earnings because we want the players to have as much agency as possible and fans to be able to diversify across as many players as possible,” Zach said.

Each offering has a fixed number of player units available to fans. Once the player reaches the majors, the agreed-upon percentage of each paycheck is paid back and distributed to investors based on their stake, minus expenses such as legal and transaction costs.

Agentiq targets players who fit at least one of a few profiles: high-ranked prospects, players with strong marketing appeal, and players its models believe have more upside than their current rankings suggest. The team’s baseball connections, including a former player and someone who came out of one of the industry’s top agencies, help open doors with players, agents, and wealth managers.

Keeping Fees Low

Because Agentiq built its platform in-house, it charges an ~8% fee on the initial offering and 2.5% on ongoing payments, which Zach said is well below what earlier attempts at this model have charged. The goal is to eventually bring that initial fee down to 4%.

“Our goal is to make it as cheap as possible for everybody,” he said. “It just takes time to build.”

What’s Next

Agentiq is developing a secondary market that would give investors an option to potentially have liquidity, though the company can’t guarantee when or whether it will be developed, or that buyers will be available. Down the road, it also plans to add community features like exclusive merchandise, autographs, and possibly charity dinners with players.

Through all of it, Zach keeps coming back to one distinction. “We’re not betting,” he said. “We are investing.”

This is the first installment of a four-part series on Agentiq. Part two will take a closer look at the players on Agentiq’s roster.